The news is reporting that our area is due to be hit this week by the heat wave
that's been cooking the west coast. This is not great news, as our weather was
already, as the line from Biloxi Blues put it, "Africa hot."

My first guess would be over heating…except you say it can happen in a minute.

It is possible the system just thinks it is over heating even if it is not, could be a heat sensor or it could be the fan speed sensor coming and going. I would check all the fans and heat sinks and make sure they are clean and spinning good. Also check the motherboard manufactures site for BIOS updates and see if any of it addresses and type of power or heating or fan problems.

Another good possibility is the power supply is going bad…not totally bad just under heavy load (make sure its fan is spinning and clear it of dust as well).

On the software side also try reinstalling DirectX again.

It is possible it is software/driver related…but through my personal experience hard reboots and shutdowns is hardware with XP.

Good luck!

we keep one of the covers off most of the time, so it's getting good airflow, but i don't have issues adding a fan or replacing the one on the processor. the power supply is less than a year old, so i can't imagine that this is the problem. we will check the mobo updates.

Does anyone have a good suggestion for updating drivers on dvd drives? i was trying to do that last night and the pc is seeing both of her dvd writers as generic and doesn't give manufacturers.

_________________________________________________You look like you're about to do something stupid. I'm in.